Composer cannot resolve 2.2.8-devphp7 version

[malkusch]

With the following composer.json:

{
    "require-dev": {
        "ext-redis": "^2.2.4",
    }
}

Composer (6146f7a) thinks the installed extension doesn't match:

The requested PHP extension ext-redis ^2.2.4 has the wrong version (2.2.8-devphp7) installed. Install or enable PHP's redis extension.

I then even tried to explicitly require that 2.2.8-devphp7 version with

{
    "require-dev": {
        "ext-redis": "2.2.8-devphp7",
    }
}

And now composer cannot parse that version:

[UnexpectedValueException]
Could not parse version constraint 2.2.8-devphp7: Invalid version string "2.2.8-devphp7"

[stof]

Well, 2.2.8-devphp7 is not a supported version number. So just require * for now, until ext-redis exposes a supported version number.

[malkusch]

What exactly is broken with the version 2.2.8-devphp7? I understand that this is even a valid semver version. Reading composer's manual about versions my understanding is probably too limited to see why 2.2.8-devphp7 should be unsupported.

So just require * for now

Thanks for this suggestion, but I won't.

[alcohol]

@malkusch except for historical reasons, Composer doesn't allow semver specifically.

    /**
     * Regex to match pre-release data (sort of).
     *
     * Due to backwards compatibility:
     *   - Instead of enforcing hyphen; an underscore, dot or nothing at all are also accepted.
     *   - Only stabilities as recognized by Composer are allowed to precede a numerical identifier.
     *   - Numerical-only pre-release identifiers are not supported, see tests.
     *
     *                        |--------------|
     * [major].[minor].[patch] -[pre-release] +[build-metadata]
     *
     * @var string
     */

So 2.2.8-dev7 would be ok, but 2.2.8-devphp7 is not because devphp is not a supported stability.

[alcohol]

Can you give us the output of composer show -m?

Edit: sorry, command needs to be composer show -p

[malkusch]

but 2.2.8-devphp7 is not because devphp is not a supported stability.

So this devphp has a special meaning in Composer land. Ok, I can understand not supporting that in the composer.json file, but in my case (which is PHP-7 plus ext-redis on travis) I think it's very confusing that the installed version 2.2.8-devphp7 cannot be compared against my ^2.2.4 constraint.

How about not giving devphp a special meaning on the side of the installed extensions?

composer show -p

ext-redis 0

[alcohol]

We don't give it a special meaning. We simply cannot parse it. This means that the installed version ends up being unrecognized, and thus it defaults to 0. As 0 does not match a constraint of ^2.2.4, the requirement is considered unmet.

[malkusch]

We simply cannot parse it

How about changing that? Would you accept a PR which would be able to compare 2.2.8-devphp7 against a ^2.2.4 constraint?

[alcohol]

Personally I'm ok with that, but when I first suggested to @Seldaek to support semver more according to their specification, he seemed a bit reluctant. So you'll have to convince him :-)

See composer/semver repo for details.

[malkusch]

I guess you refer to composer/semver#15, right?

[alcohol]

To some extend, this was discussed there, yes.

[Seldaek]

One possibility to improve this (since it seems impossible to get pecl devs to clean up their act) would be to add a fallback for extension versions if they don't parse we could just keep the digits ^\d+(\.\d+)* (and maybe the stability) and remove whatever follows so that it's parseable. It'd be best-effort and would result in 2.2.8 or 2.2.8-dev which is better than 0 I suppose.

[Seldaek]

Just pushed a fix that should make 2.2.8-devphp7 parse as 2.2.8

[malkusch]

Thank you.

[ozahorulia]

Thank you!